 When Game of Thrones first debuted in 2011, mainstream film and television had a true fantasy hit for the first time in years. What had previously been seen as a genre of cinematic poison, relegated to the pages of obscure pulp novels only enjoyed by nerds, now became a cash cow for television producers and convinced every amateur writer that they could make it big if they threw in a few more character deaths. With this success came a slew of copycats that I've already talked about in another video. However, this was also the first time that many people were exposed to the sub-genre of low fantasy. Before this, many people viewed fantasy through the lens of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, a land of fair elves and heroes where magic was a fact of life, if uncommon, and the line between good and evil was clear as day. Now audiences realized that fantasy could be darker and more focused on things like human relationships or political scheming. You know what else audiences should focus on? This video's sponsor, Campfire.com. CampfireWriting.com? Yeah, I've heard of it. It's a place to help both amateur and professional writers with organizations so they don't need a million word files on a USB. CampfireWrite is the main job of the site. It includes over a dozen modules to organize your writing with things like character sheets, timelines, and world-building encyclopedias. Considering how much nerds like to poke holes in the canon, it's nice to have everything in one place. Everything you create there is private unless you decide to share it, and it's all safely stored in the cloud. That's not all, though. There's more. CampfireLearn is a place to improve your craft with advice and learning tools. It even has a place to share your work and receive feedback in Campfire Explore. You can put all your stuff out there and join the community as soon as you start. You only have to pay for the features you actually use. You can start a subscription for as little as 50 cents a month or pay a one-time fee with Campfire's a la carte options. They even have an offline desktop app with a mobile app on the way, with the capability to monetize your writing. This whole thing sounds pretty good. If you're the type of writer who has difficulty with organization, you should probably check it out. Me? No. I can't get Campfire. I'm too busy with my files. Low Fantasy is, as the name subtly implies, a type of fantasy that takes place in another world and features little to no supernatural or magical elements. This doesn't include hidden world-type fantasy where it's just our world with a magical underground, e.g. Harry Potter. In a low fantasy setting, there will likely be no sentient races besides humans. Magic will be rare to the point where many think it doesn't exist, and even when it's prominent in the story, it's an exciting incident rather than the focus of the plot. The stories also tend to focus on smaller-scale problems such as wars, politics, and individual revenge as opposed to saving the world from a dark lord. There are, however, exceptions to all of these aspects. They don't need to be checked off for something to be considered low fantasy. It's more about the general vibe. Genres resist hard definitions anyways. They're just a way for us to categorize types of stories that share some characteristics. Low fantasy includes things like how to train your dragon, the early stages of Berserk, The Witcher, and Bloodborne. The magical elements are there, but they're extremely rare in the setting or very limited in scope. When magic does appear, it tends to be corrupting or difficult to control or just weak. And when supernatural creatures like dragons appear, they tend to be wild animals rather than humanoids with their own civilizations. Low fantasy is not the same thing as grimdark or dark fantasy, though there is a large overlap between the three. Dark Souls is dark fantasy because the setting revolves around decay, hopeless causes, and the inevitability of death. But magic and magical creatures are huge there, from simple fireballs to dragons to the whole creation mythos, so it's not low fantasy. And grimdark is what happens when you take an unmedicated teenage nihilist and ask him how he thinks the real world works. High fantasy is the opposite of low fantasy in terms of setting, with magic being prominent and even common. The story will likely feature magical elements as an important aspect, and it will usually be about saving the world from some sort of massive threat. Chosen ones and dark lords are optional, though very common. High fantasy includes things like Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Avatar the Last Airbender, and even One Piece. Since this is what most people think of when they hear the word fantasy, it tends to dominate any discussion. People who dislike fantasy typically dislike high fantasy, or at least the image they hold of it in their head. Chosen ones saving the world bores them, and they view magic as pure Deus Ex Machina, so many of them were drawn to Game of Thrones even if they normally would have passed a fantasy TV show by. Genres are slippery in general, and I'm sure dozens of you are already typing up a refutation to something I just said. Whatever the case, that's the basic idea of high versus low fantasy. It's primarily a difference in setting with the differences in plot being secondary. We all on the same page? No? Well, I'm trucking ahead anyways. Now it's time for me to bring back the title of this video. What's the point of low fantasy? It's not that I hate this genre, though I have plenty of criticisms, I just don't see the point of it in its current form. And by that I mean a world with little personality filled with people murdering each other for petty reasons. The whole point of fantasy is to explore another world that's, well, fantastical. I want to watch adventures featuring elves and wizards that can cause earthquakes the same way others want to read romances about shirtless, fabio-esque men sweeping young maidens off their feet. We're all just trying to distract ourselves from the fact that no one can view our thoughts, and thus they all have a different view of us, but none of those are accurate, and the way we view others is also inaccurate, and I don't know if a meaningful connection is even possible under these circumstances, please help me. That's the big thing that drew so many to fantasy to begin with, the way it's different from real life. A world devoid of mystical elements can still be fascinating and well-developed, the history, cultures, and politics can and should be as complex as a high fantasy setting. I built my channel on worldbuilding so take it from me. And a lot of low fantasy doesn't do this. They just have vaguely European names and architecture without any further depth. This is missing the whole point of being different from real life. Part of this is escapism or wish fulfillment, and there's nothing wrong with that. Another large component is that you can use fantastical elements to comment on real-world issues in a way separated from real biases and emotions. Think of the mage and Templar conflict from the Dragon Age games, and how it makes a fascinating conflict for Thedas, while also being a lens for things like gun rights and anti-terrorism laws. Most important of all is that magic and dragons are just cool. You don't need any more reason than that to enjoy something. More intellectual reasons are fine, but secondary. So if there's no fantastical elements, and the setting is basically just medieval Europe, because the settings are always based on medieval Europe, then why have it in another world at all? Many TV shows seem to have asked themselves this question and decided to just abandon the fantasy aspect entirely. Things like The Last Kingdom and The Bastard Executioner decided to be historical dramas instead, and they fucking sucked. This isn't purely due to the lack of fantastical elements. They both have severe issues with the writing, acting, and production values that drag them down. For me at least, a huge problem was how they're too concerned with being gritty and dark. They aren't trying to tell a good story utilizing a different setting, they're just being edgy by adding a ton of murder and rape. Rather than being more realistic or down-to-earth than their high fantasy counterparts, many low-modern fantasy tales are still overblown with larger-than-life characters and heroes that escape impossible situations. All those characters are just assholes. They have villains who will wipe out whole villages and murder underlings to make a point, just like in high fantasy, but without the morally pure heroes to balance them out, which makes the whole world seem cruel and nihilistic. There's an ultimate evil without an ultimate good, which might be fine if it was tied into some sort of theme, yet it usually isn't. It feels like this is the direction creators took the genre because they felt this is what the genre is supposed to be. Watch my review of Season 2 of The Witcher for more of me talking about this sort of thing. If everyone here is an irredeemable cunt, why should I care about what happens? That's a question I've never received a satisfying answer to. Low fantasy tends to be about the normal people, at least in part. It doesn't follow the chosen ones and the good kings and the dark lords. As a genre, it tries to get into the mud and examine what life would really be like in a world where the laws of reality are different than our own. How would people adapt to goblins that live in a nearby kingdom or wizards that can rewrite time? This is also a way to deconstruct or subvert traditional high fantasy tropes in ways that attract people who dislike them. The king might just be an evil bastard who abuses his power instead of being someone who brings peace and prosperity to the land. Or he might try to be a good leader, but he'll still be a flawed human who's trying to balance the needs of many power blocks while fending off schemes by less scrupulous foes, leading him to make mistakes. The dark lord might be evil, just not an unknowable demonic presence that's made of pure darkness. He'll be a conqueror, a power-hungry hedonist who views others as nothing more than a means or an obstacle to his own pleasure. Someone who utilizes violence as their first problem-solving tool. A very real type of evil, in other words. Without spoilers, this is what makes the villains from Berserk work so well. Even if magic is more prominent there, the apostles are fundamentally just people with no empathy given a large amount of power. They aren't motivated by a desire to destroy the world, they just do whatever the fuck they want. Whether that's making an empire or wandering around killing random villagers. Good low fantasy contains villains like Griffith or Cersei Lannister because this real type of evil feels closer to home. Most of us have met someone who doesn't understand human relationships and only seeks out power as a way to achieve their own pleasure. Even if you haven't met someone like this, the country you live in is run by a hundred of them. And this very real type of evil is countered by a very real type of good. People who don't save the day because they're the greatest swordsmen of all time or because they're destined to stop all evil, but because they see some wrongdoing in the world and want to do what they can to stop it. And these very real types of people don't go off on adventures to bring some magic artifact to the spot where it needs to be to save the world. They do things like try to stop wars, get revenge on powerful people who have wronged them, and gain political authority for themselves. This is what drew people to low fantasy in the first place. It's a more human genre, one where the motivations and emotions make more sense to modern people. But without the chosen ones and the good kings and the dark lords, there's no built-in storyline to follow. You can't just put a save the world plot on autopilot. So what's a low fantasy story about? It's up to every individual creator. There's no standard template. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing since it allows more creative freedom without fear of alienating your audience. A curse since it gives you no starting point and if you don't have a clear idea of the sort of story you want to tell, you can wind up drowning in a sea of half-baked subplots. In my video on Game of Thrones Clones, I brought up this very problem. Too many copycats tried to utilize the same plot structure of a bunch of characters putter around doing stuff with no main conflict or goal to work towards. And it has never worked out. Literally never. It always devolves into a mishmash of backstabbing, sex, and the occasional sword fight that no one gives a shit about before being cancelled after a season or two, or just selling poorly if it's not a TV show. Having many plot threads is great, but they have to be tied together. Otherwise the plot isn't a tapestry, it's a bunch of string laid side by side. The thing about Game of Thrones is that it's not really low fantasy. It straddles the line between high and low fantasy. At the start, there's not much magic, but it becomes more prevalent over time. The story focuses on politics rather than saving the world from evil, but the politics covers two entire continents. The morality is grey in that the heroes we follow sometimes do bad things, but the villains are still very clear cut. And in the end, the heroes have to save all of humanity from the snow zombies. There are elements of high fantasy here, elements which become more prominent as time goes on. All the copycats only saw the low fantasy, or at least they only utilized the low fantasy. The sudden popularity of Game of Thrones seemed to convince everybody, but especially TV executives, that audiences just loved low fantasy. They didn't want magic and world saving, they wanted to watch unknown European actors be sad in castles. I've already talked about the severe issues that arose when people tried to copy George R.R. Martin without understanding what made his books work. There's nothing wrong with having more grounded stories, settings, and characters. The problems arise when writers decide that they want to do that without understanding how or why to do so. The worst part of low fantasy isn't even the low fantasy part. It's how after some mainstream success, everyone wants their story to be dark low fantasy, but no one wants to commit to it. Think about it, how often have you seen the protagonist get killed before the end of the first book, even after Sean Bean's head got lopped off? How often do major characters in general get permanently killed? How many times have you found a story that focuses on regular people instead of nobility? They don't want to be Game of Thrones, they want the trappings of it without any of the substance or even doing anything original. This might not be much of a problem if the creators of these works had more familiarity with the low fantasy genre, the sorts of things that inspired George R.R. Martin in the first place, but it seems as though many of them don't. So rather than making their own thing, they're copying someone else without knowing what it is they're copying. And to make it worse, many people started to get it in their heads that a lack of fantastical elements made things darker and more mature by default. Think of the Tomb Raider movie reboot. The old games had all kinds of crazy magic and monsters and gods and dinosaurs. In the film, the Japanese mummy curse is a plague and all the magic was just smoke and mirrors. Riveting. But I guess anything with fantastical elements is for kids by default. The Last Kingdom, which I'll keep bringing up because it's a great example of all the terrible things I'm talking about, has plenty of blood and sex with zero magic, and it's a very sophomoric show. None of the, quote, mature elements are utilized in a mature way. Ironically, they make it more childish. In fact, every producer seems to have decided that Vikings are the key to success in this area. The Last Kingdom, Vikings, the Northmen, Vikings of Valhalla, fucking hell. If you want to make a historical drama with potential for a lot of action, there's plenty of other things to focus on. But they shouldn't because shows like Barbarians and Marco Polo are still awful. The creators assume that adding blood and sex makes their works dark and mature, and then they assume that not including any magic makes them even darker and even more mature. You can have dark stories while also having dragons and stuff. Mistborn is a dark story. It deals with complex themes of revolution, class struggle, sexual abuse, and extreme violence. It also revolves around the heroes using metal magic to save the world from a god of destruction. Fantasy and mature themes are not mutually exclusive. Berserk is... Berserk, and a substantial portion of the story wouldn't happen without magic. Not to mention the protagonist fights with a sword that would weigh almost 100 kilograms, which no human could do. You may have noticed that most of the issues I'm bringing up here are recent, and that's because the genre only got big in the past 10 years. Game of Thrones combined low fantasy and dark fantasy, which makes everyone think they're the same thing. I spent an entire page of the script going over what all of those genres were so we'd be in agreement, yet just about every example of low fantasy I can bring up is also dark fantasy. People think they're the same. Everyone wanted to be different and they tried to be different in the same way. This is a genre which can only thrive when it's a niche. When you subvert the idea of traditional high fantasy setting too many times, it becomes standard, expected, stale. It's no longer a subversion, it's the norm. Dark fantasy went from obscure to mainstream, which means the novelty wore off and we were forced to think about how a lot of these so-called realistic aspects of the genre were stupid. There's an idea that constant murder and rape is the natural state of humanity and that modern society is all that holds us back. This idea is common in both low fantasy and the post-apocalyptic genre. Without the machinery of the modern state like police, we would all be subject to abuse from roving bands of raiders and the only thing that might make this machinery bad is that sometimes bad people get to be in charge. Please don't question or try to reform the system. Without it you will undergo massive suffering. It's a thoroughly stupid idea for a variety of reasons. If you don't believe me, consider the following. If the natural state of humanity was unfiltered greed and sadism, how did society form to begin with? People are naturally cooperative. We're social animals who build communities. That's why we created countries and governments in the first place. The reasons people take violent action are usually based in things like inter-personal conflict, need for resources, or rulers of one group seeking wealth from another group. Skilled writers could take advantage of this to showcase complex conflicts with deep themes about how different societies work but we all remain the same in the end. Instead we just get edginess because no one seems to know what to do here. With a bunch of dumb tropes like this, low fantasy became nothing more than an excuse for lazy world-building. Now in order to do something unexpected you have to feature zero rapes or add in a few characters that are decent people. And that's what I want to end on. Low fantasy doesn't have to be dark, just as high fantasy doesn't have to be light-hearted. Genres are not chains that restrict what you can and can do. They're an open sandbox that lets you explore your creativity with a small amount of guidance. It's just that the vast majority of the offerings on display fit into a very narrow range, giving people the idea that the sandbox is much smaller than it really is. And when they get the same thing over and over, and the same thing isn't very good to start, they'll get tired of it quick. Then the genre will die off, at least temporarily. I guess we'll just add low fantasy to the list of things ruined by being too successful. So what's the point of modern low fantasy then? It isn't unique, it isn't escapism, it isn't realistic, it isn't subversive. So what's the point? I don't know anymore. Hopefully someone else can answer that question. It'll take some work and some creativity, but I have faith it can be done. Someday. If you watched this far, then thank you so much for supporting my rambling, and thanks a whole bunch to all of my patrons, whose names you can see here, and thanks to my $10 and up patrons who are Tesla Shark, Vaivictus, and Wesley. All of these people, like I just couldn't do it without them. If you want to get your name on here, then consider becoming a patron. All it takes is a dollar a month, and if you don't feel like doing that, or you're unable to, then simply liking this video, commenting on it, subscribing to my channel, it helps spread it around, and I appreciate it more than you know. And I guess thanks to my dog Oscar too, he is currently nuzzling at my leg, because he wants attention, like I wasn't giving it to him all day. Anyways, see you later. Goodbye.